


Shakes our faith and breaks their promise

by risinggreatness



Series: Circle 'round the sun [106]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risinggreatness/pseuds/risinggreatness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shmi II is haunted by visions of the last nightsister (not EU compliant)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shakes our faith and breaks their promise

For a while, her accolades are enough to distract Shmi from the nightmares ( _worse than those she dreams of her grandparents_ ) which plague her sleep.

She did not always have them nor do they always haunt her.

They creep into her head during bouts of loneliness or anger, growing and amplified by her fear. But they have never been clear. Shmi almost relies on the indistinct images to wake her in a cold sweat and an unshakeable panic.

That is why, when the dreams start to take form, Shmi turns into a nervous wreck.

Day after day, she walks the Temple halls without purpose, speaking very little – trying to carry on as if everything is normal. ( _She wonders if anyone notices the change in her._ )

Night after night, the stars fall from the heavens, plunging Shmi into darkness.

Dev opens his door to her without question, allowing her to fall asleep wrapped in his arms.

Constellations she has never seen before extinguish one by one. Shadow comes again; this time she is not alone. Shmi feels their presence behind her, but is too afraid to turn.

“Come to my prison. Meet with me.”

Each word picks at her like a vulture pecking flesh from bone.

Shmi spins around, reaching for her absent lightsaber; the speaker is mere inches from her face.

“Sweet dreams.”

The witch’s laugh fades into Shmi’s screaming.

Dev sits bolt upright, steadying her, “Shh. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

Shmi shakes her head vigorously, “No, it wasn’t. It was too real.”

“What was it?”

“The Nightsister.”

\----------

Shmi’s hands are clammy as they go through security and only release Dev’s at the checkpoint.

Letting go of her lightsaber now is harder to do than ever before. It took half the Order at the time of the occupation of New Alderaan to capture her, Shmi does not like the idea of facing Asajj Ventress unarmed.

She drops her communicator into the box without a second thought.

The guards lead her through the base to an isolated cell. One of them places a device into her open palm, “Press this when you’re done,” then steps aside, allowing her over the threshold.

The heavy door hisses locked behind her. Shmi clutches to her means for escape.

“So good of you to come when called.” Ventress sits cross-legged, facing the wall.

“What do you want from me?”

“Only to talk. We can do that, can’t we?”

Shmi does not lower her defenses, “What about?”

Ventress’s head tilts to the side, “Your mother was trained in the Dark Side of the Force, wasn’t she?”

Her stomach drops. How could Ventress have come by that information?

“Yes, she was. I can sense it through your fear. You are terrified of who she was – of what you would become.”

Quick as lightning, Shmi’s fear turns into anger, no doubt brought on by sleepless nights.

She bites the bait, “That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?” Ventress is suddenly on her feet, as close to Shmi now as she was in the dream. “We are all doomed to become our parents eventually. Some of us just fall harder than others.”

“You’re lying! Not all of us! Dad didn’t! Dad rejected Dark Side and his father!”

It is not until she sees the triumphant gleam in Ventress’s eye that Shmi realizes what she has done. Skywalkers are reckless pilots, but Shmi is sure none of them have flown as fast as the words from her mouth.

The finger resting on her escape device presses the call button. The guards cannot let her out of this cell quick enough ( _too late, the damage has been done_ ).

“Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader.”

Her fiendish glee is too much for Shmi. “No. No, he wasn’t.”

“ _Don’t_ lie to me! It won’t work. Skywalker turned to the Dark Side and now I have proof.”

“No one will ever believe you.”

“You’d be surprised what people are willing to believe.”

The cell door finally opens behind her and Shmi sprints out. She runs as fast as she can down the corridor towards the outside – away from this place, away from Ventress, away from her mistake.

Her flight is interrupted by the security checkpoint; they return her lightsaber ( _much good may it do her now_ ). She feels faint. How could she have let this happen?

On the other side of the glass, Dev waits for her. He does not know about her grandfather. She has not told him. He cannot know. No one can know.

Ventress cannot hurt them; she will waste away in that cell. Nobody _has_ to know.

“What did she want?”

“Nothing.”

\----------

Deflection is instinctive and automatic.

The lie consumes her. Each time she repeats it, she is sure a piece of her is chewed away.

Someone asks if something is the matter.

Shmi nervously swallows her guilt.

\----------

Through meditation she feels the change of the guard, the charge of the air – the surge of the Force. She gathers her strength.

Ventress’s eyes snap open.

_It’s time._

Freedom waits.

\----------

The sky may as well be crashing down on them. The stars may well be burning out, but nobody knows the danger they are in.

The Jedi make for every nearby port, hangar, or docking bay – any place she may be able to get a transport off world – to prevent Ventress’s escape.

Shmi ignores orders and heads straight for the under city ( _she knows in her gut they will not find her taking to the air_ ). Her feet carry her as faster than she has ever run before; old obstacles, no longer hindrances. She pushes past anything which stands in her way, until she catches a glimpse of the witch.

“Ventress!”

Shmi bears down on Ventress, lightsaber unsheathed.

Pulling her lightsaber hilts out of nowhere, Ventress blocks, “You’re out of your depth, little girl. Only a Jedi or a Sith can defeat me!”

Ventress is wrong: she is not so young and Shmi _is_ a Jedi. It is Ventress who is past her prime; she is slower and weaker than Shmi imagined. ( _Her pride blinds her._ )

Shmi breaks their lock, knocking one of the hilts from Ventress’s grip.

“You underestimate my abilities.”

Her flight forgotten, Ventress screams as she unleashes a terrible series of attacks. Shmi can just barely hold her back.

They move down dirty and shadowed side streets; alley walls trap them in, offering little in the way of cover. As they move down the narrow passage, Ventress changes her technique; less offensive and more luring. Shmi is drawn in by its unnatural grace.

One swing nearly catches her shoulder; Shmi stumbles into several metal canisters to avoid it.

“I’ve changed my mind about you,” Ventress gloats. “You would make a fine apprentice.”

Enraged, Shmi throws the canisters in her direction. The first narrowly misses Ventress; the second knocks the other hilt out of her hand.

The red glow from lightsaber disappears, leaving the alley even dimmer than before; illuminated only by Shmi’s green blade.

Jumping at the chance, Shmi pins Ventress to the wall.

“The galaxy can’t know about Anakin Skywalker. I can’t let you escape.”

She feels it egging her on ( _the thrum of the Dark Side_ ). It is in Ventress’s pulse. It is in hers.

She is ready to do it too – ready to kill Ventress.

Even with a lightsaber humming at her throat, Ventress cackles.

“Go ahead. Kill me. Prove you’re Darth Vader’s granddaughter. I’d like to be the cause of another Skywalker’s destruction.”

Staring petrified at the witch, Shmi’s hand trembles.

Ventress is trying to provoke her into this – to lead her down the path to the Dark Side. The cost is too high: to protect her family she would have to sacrifice herself, but she if she did, she would never be able look them in the eye again. For all the grief the truth carries, they would rather lose their pride than her.

Shmi has to come away from the precipice.

She lowers the blade.

“You’re weak,” Ventress snarls and kicks Shmi’s legs out from underneath her.

Pain shoots through her back as she hits the ground. Eyes clenched shut, she groans, still half-dazed from her brush on the edge.

She does not see Ventress summon the blades back to her. She does not see the lightsabers reignite or the flash of red it slices through flesh and bone. Shmi has spent her entire life around lightsabers – handling them, sparring with them – she has never before felt their burn.

Her leg sears; Shmi cries out.

“So you can’t follow me,” Ventress says and leaps away.

Desperate for something – anything that can stop Ventress, Shmi clambers to stand up. Unable to support herself, she falls to the ground.

Lying there, face in the dirt and detached leg just beyond reach, reality sinks in.

\----------

Ventress vanishes, just as Ahsoka said she could: like a cloud of smoke. Hours later, the Jedi return to the Temple empty handed.

Set’s shoulder slump forward, eyelids drooping. Beside him, Pres drags his feet.

His former padawan wallows in their defeat, he does not recall the struggle it was to capture Ventress the first time – he does not know how demoralizing it is to lose her a second time.

_They had her! How could she have slipped through their fingers?_

“What do you mean Shmi never showed up?!”

Everyone’s heads perk up at the rare sound of Luke raising his voice to anyone. Poor Klossi looks as if she might cry faced with the overwrought parents.

“Where did she go?!”

The hunt begins again ( _this time for one of their own_ ). They take to the streets in teams. Set worries about Luke and Mara going off in their frantic state together, but pairs with Leia and dives into the lower levels.

As they approach an abandoned section of the city, Set and Leia split up.

Under other circumstances, Set’s heart would not be pounding so hard, but he was a young Jedi too recently not to be scared for the girl he considers the little sister he never had.

He was not prepared to face his first Sith a couple years after knighthood – Shmi is barely four months out of the gate. And going after Ventress _alone_? She could be hurt or kidnapped or – no, he will not think it.

“Shmi! Godsdamn it, answer me!”

“Set?” her voice is feeble and unsure.

“Shmi!” he cries again, turning down the alleyway and signaling Leia to catch up with him.

He feels as if he can breathe again when he spots her leaning against a dented canister. He throws himself onto her, pulling her into a tight hug. He is too awash with relief to notice anything is wrong.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Shmi’s face screws up, fighting back a tumultuous wave of emotion until suddenly her tears win out. She sobs into Set’s shirt.

Shmi latches onto her aunt when Leia arrives, sobbing ‘I’m sorrys’ every time she can manage one.

Allowing Leia to embrace her niece, Set finally notices the empty space where Shmi’s right leg should be. His stomach turns, but he does not say anything.

Calmed some, Set carries his sister back to the arms of her parents – into the arms of the Force.

She is stone-faced when she finally tells them the truth.

“Ventress knows. She knows and it’s my fault.”

Nobody knows how to comfort her when Shmi breaks down again.

\----------

Morning routine: wake up at the sound of the bells, dress for duty, and report for briefing. With no alert for the change of rotation, Shmi gets as far has swinging her leg( _s_ ) heavily over the bed.

She stares blankly at the place where it should be.

The dressings on the wound, clean and tidy when she fell into a fitful sleep, unravel. Tearing at the rest of the linen bandage, the salve and foul carnage stench escape and fill the air, it nearly makes her sick.

“What are you doing?”

Dad’s face is unreadable, his prosthetic hand gloved, though it needs no repairs.

Shmi fights another wave of sickness looking at it. She stops unwrapping the stump.

“Dad, I’m so sor –”

“Stop it, Shmi. Just stop it,” he insists shortly. “You’ve apologized enough already.”

“But it’s my fault,” she croaks.

Dad shakes his head, “It doesn’t matter now.”

“But it does! You warned us what could happen!”

She is close to sobbing again and she cannot run away from it, from dad, from anything. She cannot run anywhere.

Warm arms wrap around her; she buries her face into dad’s chest and clings tightly to him.

Choking back tears of his own, “I don’t care what happens, as long as you’re safe. You’re more important to me than your grandfather. You’re safe, Shmi.”

His last words are whispered, a reassurance for himself. His embrace becomes that much tighter.

\----------

Unable to bear Luke and Mara’s silence, Han leaves the waiting room to find Leia. Pres, Sam, and Bee stay with them.

She, Ahsoka, and several other Jedi masters gather in the hospital conference room. Leia looks at him gravely. If she had her way, she would be sitting beside her brother. But a decision must be made and they have put it off too long already.

Han moves on, uncomfortable intruding on a Jedi meeting, though the outcome may concern him.

His footsteps echo as he paces up and down the deathly quiet halls.

Eventually, he finds his way back to the waiting room. A young man loiters outside, his head between his knees. Han recognizes him as Shmi’s boyfriend.

He never paid the kid much attention, expecting he would be one in a long line of hearts Shmi would break before settling down. ( _He is inordinately proud of his daughters and niece; beautiful girls, now young women deserving the best, he would be surprised if they did not break some hearts along the way._ ) But devotion and silent suffering are easily recognizable.

Clearing his throat, he makes his presence known.

The kid lifts his head slowly then jumps up all at once; standing at attention, “General Solo!”

One of Wedge’s pilots, no doubt, though Han notes the lightsaber at the kid’s side. “At ease. I’m not here on official business. What’s your name?”

“Lt. Deval Dahl, sir.”

_Ah! That’s right_ , he remembers. “Why don’t you come on in, Dev, instead of sitting out here?”

“I’m not sure I should, sir.” Then, as if looking for any excuse to escape this encounter, “I really shouldn’t be here – this is a family matter – I should go.”

“Oh no, you don’t. If you love Shmi, you’ll stay for her. Now sit,” Han orders.

Dev drops automatically back into the seat.

Han’s gamble is correct: Dev is in love with Shmi, torn between worry for her and anger at a dead man Han knows only too well. He hopes Dev is The One for Shmi because he should not have to talk hers through the unthinkable truth as well as his own kids’, but all other candidates are preoccupied.

“How are you holding up?”

“I – I don’t know,” he admits; if possible Dev’s face falls further. “I’m so confused and I can’t believe it.”

“That’s a good start.”

“Everything I know about Anakin Skywalker is a lie.”

Han shakes his head. He may have been slow to comes to terms with the truth, but he knows which parts of that man are worthy of remembering and he is confident the Jedi do too.

“Lie is too strong a word. He _was_ everything you were told, but he was a lot of other things too.”

“A Sith being one of them,” the kid’s voice lacks the accompanying bite which distinguishes the Jedi’s disdain for the one who destroyed their Order.

Stories of the monstrous Darth Vader make haunting bedside tales for children, but his looming threat is nothing more than sensationalism now. Having been chased and tortured by him, Han envies them; never knowing his true terror, not growing up during the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire.

“Does that change how you feel about Shmi?”

Taken aback, “No. Why would it?”

“No reason.” Though he would be lying if he said it never made him feel out of his depth, it did not change how he feels about Leia.

Why should it change how anyone else feels? ( _Perhaps that is the mark of someone too far gone in love._ )

He does not know what his niece feels for this young man, but Han is rooting for him.

“So what happens now?”

The question catches Han off guard. Dev is asking on a broader scope, it is too bad the scope does not have a horizon yet.

He points at the waiting room doors, “We go in there and we wait for Shmi to wake up.”

\----------

Silence permeates everything.

They came to sit in council; instead they sit in vigil for the little girl who took her first steps in the halls of the Temple. Ahsoka can still clearly see Shmi wobbling from Luke’s grasp into Mara’s and back again.

The other masters hold dear to their memories of the child of the Temple, none of them want to hold her accountable. Not at a time like this.

The door opens, allowing Seddwia to reenter.

She shakes her head, not daring to break the silence.

Leia stands to let Seddwia take her seat; if they are not accomplishing anything here, she might as well be with her family.

“If we cannot discuss Shmi, we must at least decide what to do about Ventress,” Darrin breaks the silence before Leia exits. “What do we intend to do about her?”

“What can we do?” Jiro asks.

They look to Ahsoka. They look to her because all of them she knew Ventress; she does not see how that makes her any qualified to make this decision.

Ventress is gone and she has all the fuel she needs to set fire to the New Order. And if she does not want to be found, she will not, not by them and not by anyone else.

“There’s nothing we can do.”

They will wait for the blade to fall.

Leia stiffens momentarily then relaxes. Resting a hand on Ahsoka shoulder, “They’re done. Shmi’s fine.”

The gathered breathe easier. The issue at hand remains unresolved.

\----------

Walking should not be this hard. With each step Shmi wobbles a little less, but pain still shoots through the remaining portion of her leg.

She sucks the air as she puts more pressure on her prosthetic foot, “Fuckfuckfuckfuck.”

Shmi immediately shifts all her weight back onto her left leg.

Frustrated, “I can’t do this!”

Mom watches quietly.

Her eyes move up and down the shining metal. It feels nothing like dad’s hand at all, all hard and cold.

“You can and you will.”

Shmi’s eyes are raw and dry.

“It’ll just take some time to adjust,” mom assures her, moving from her spot against the wall.

Shmi resents the rehabilitation process. She could run to greet her parents at two; it takes a hell of a lot more to take a single step at twenty.

But she remembers how, which is more than she can say for mom.

Mom, who endured so much more. Mom, who might never have felt again. Mom, who she idolizes. Mom, who taught her to walk in the first place.

She still winces as she does it, but Shmi walks straight into mom’s open arms.

\----------

Ventress staggers through the dark ( _damn vixus, slicing her side open_ ).

She loses more blood with every passing minute. Her vision distorts, as if she could see anything on this system anyway.

Ventress collapses on the ground.

_All for nothing_ , she laments.

_It does not have to be, Asajj Ventress._

It is as if His presence is the only real thing in the galaxy.

_Take my hand._

**Author's Note:**

> See author bio for discussion on this 'verse.


End file.
